New York, NY, November 09, 2011 --(PR.com)--
When veteran documentary filmmaker Whitney Dow’s latest film When The
Drum is Beating (Two Tone Productions, 2011) premiered at the Tribeca
Film Festival last April to a standing ovation, he thought his problems
were over. After five years of work on the film,
(http://www.whenthedrumisbeating.com/) an epic musical odyssey through
Haiti’s tortured history with the legendary Haitian big band
Septentrional, he had achieved what all filmmakers hope for: a premiere
at a prestigious film festival, an offer for theatrical distribution
from the respected First Run Features, and a commitment from PBS to air
the film nationally. So why was he still so anxious?

For Dow,
like so many filmmakers today, the economics of making independent film
have gone from bad to atrocious. A Peabody and duPont Award winner who’s
films have screened at the most prestigious festivals in the world, Dow
now finds that a having a good film and track record, and even
guaranteed distribution, are not enough. He, like many filmmakers, had
completed his film in deficit, and in order to take advantage of the
distribution opportunities offered to him, he still has to pay for the
rights to use the archival footage and music used in the film. Without
these rights, the film cannot be distributed.

"The economics of
filmmaking have shifted dramatically from the front end to the back
end," Dow said. "It used to be that if you got a chunk of your budget in
place, you could do enough presales to cover the rest of your
production costs. Now broadcasters and distributors shop the festivals
paying acquisition fees for the films they want that are typically much
lower than the co-production and presale fees that come earlier in the
project."

So Dow, has done what more and more filmmakers are
doing once they have a finished film, he turned to Kickstarter.com to
raise the funds he needed to ensure distribution. is a
crowd source funding website that functions like an online pledge drive.
There is a set period of time a project has to achieve its funding goal
- in Dow’s case $65,000.00 in 60 days, and it only gets the money if
the entire number is raised. "Kickstarter should really be called
Kickfinisher," Dow said. “I know a number of people who have upwards of
$100,000 in just a few short weeks by taking the case for their films
directly to the web. It is an extremely nerve wracking process, but
there is no place else in the fundraising world were you are so much in
control of your own destiny.”

Dow’s campaign expires on December
5th, and to date he has raised a little over 20% of his goal. The
project is being featured by Sundance Institute as part of their alumni
collaboration with Kickstarter and is featured on the Sundance curated
page (http://www.kickstarter.com/pages/sundanceinstitute) To help things
along, Septentrional (http://www.orchestreseptentrional.org/) is in the
US touring behind their new album “Pi Douvan.” They will be playing
dates in Florida, New York and Canada during November and December and
asking their audiences to contribute to the campaign.